


By Divine Hand

by Matloc



Category: Fate/Zero
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fireplace fuzzies, Fluff, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 17:36:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13439820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matloc/pseuds/Matloc
Summary: On her last night with Irisviel in the Einzbern home, Saber reflects on memories of a past life.‘Home’ dredged up memories that failed to stir any feelings beyond regret and the irrevocable desire to fix history. One that ended with her kneeling, her crownless head hanging lower than the hilt of her sword that stood solemnly rooted in the earth, cold adamantium reflecting a face made foreign by defeat as a morbid red congealed, in the tatters of her skirts, into iron that shackled her legs down. Memories, bloodless ones, had no place inside a king who spilled it by the thousands.





	By Divine Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Reading time: ~4.5 minutes

Underneath the pall of winter Castle Einzbern loomed, grey and stolid, like an icy prison. A population of two holed up in a chateau for fifty made for a quiet and lonesome vacation, sentenced longer by perpetual snowstorms. Daylight at least allowed a temporal window of shimmering, snow-topped sights to gaze at from the comfort of a warm room, but night would arrive early like an enamored visitor and fall in a pitch-black shroud, swallowing all semblance of a world beyond these walls.

Under winter’s lethargic spell, an odd restlessness had seized Saber. She busied her twilight hours with long walks inside the manor, navigating the maze-like layout each night until every hallway, even that secret one with its snaking, stone-floored arms, was mapped into her muscle. By the end of the week she had tailored herself to the role of a palace warden, dutifully checking all rooms and locks, all hidden panels and levers, before turning in as the last one to sleep, and the first to wake.

Sometimes Irisviel invited herself to Saber’s explorations, lavishing their walk with vibrant anecdotes from her nascent years.

“…and the suit of armor almost fell on top of me. Oh, don’t look at me like that. Unlike you, my knight, I’m allowed to be clumsy!”

Saber ceded a chuckle at that, then Irisviel proceeded to ask if Saber had any fun memories of her own back home.

Saber stalled. It took several seconds to unpack that question. ‘Home’ dredged up memories that failed to stir any feelings beyond regret and the irrevocable desire to fix history. One that ended with her kneeling, her crownless head hanging lower than the hilt of her sword that stood solemnly rooted in the earth, cold adamantium reflecting a face made foreign by defeat as a morbid red congealed, in the tatters of her skirts, into iron that shackled her legs down. Memories, bloodless ones, had no place inside a king who spilled it by the thousands—and still lost.

In the end, all she could do was offer a stiff promise to regale Irisviel sometime in the future. Nothing was said after that.

Tonight began with another routine surveillance. Curtains of darkness fell behind Saber as she passed room after room. When the master quarters approached her vision, she paused.

Shadows crept through the gap under the great wooden doors of Irisviel’s reading room, square blocks bobbing rhythmically into the felt-covered floor, like someone was inside the room walking back and forth. She hugged the wall, and on silent feet padded her way to the doors. The burnished oak, ruddy and ancient, warmed to Saber’s touch and, as she cracked one door open, gave way to a sliver of flickering light, through which she could make out just barely, in the throng of shadows, a fuzzy silhouette kneeling before the flaming mouth of a fireplace.

“Irisviel?” She called out.

“Oh, Saber?” chimed a pleasant voice. “Close the door, won’t you?”

“You’re not sleeping,” said Saber, still lingering at the doorway.

Irisviel, without turning around, gestured for the intruder.  “Come here. Sit.”

Saber hesitated, glancing at the stagnant shadow on Irisviel’s back, its outlines flicked by firelight, before taking a seat at the edge of the floral Prussian carpet, where clumps of shimmering golden threads furled into thick knots. Irisviel smiled playfully and kept patting the gilded sepals of a hand-stitched lotus until, with dignified awkwardness, Saber scooted close enough for their knees to touch.

A blizzard picked up outside, splattering snow on the windows, but the room remained insulated by the large fireplace. It was the only Hellenic artefact in the room: a granite hearth, from which white fluted legs rose tall to shoulder a solemn entablature, A choir of angels emblazoned the frieze with firelit eyes, spreading their several wings across the marble band to cast proud shadows that, with each flicker, dipped into bordering ridges to form tears.

But many other things were old here. Saber—her name, for one. Knowing that she chose to lead a man’s life under the prophetic weight of England’s crown, the last person to call her Arturia had taken it to the grave, as if her name was a secret meant to be chiseled away from the rest of the world. Which might as well be true; she had not been Arturia in a long time, not after that.

If Saber was dead in her history, then Irisviel was timeless in hers. Even to a servant she looked out of this world. To Saber, she looked like the human reincarnation of an albino rabbit Saber had once caught hiding between two apple stalls, where it surreptitiously nibbled on any shiny strays that rolled down the box. Its ruby eyes glimmered in the dark and Saber was compelled, as if by divine hand, to set it free in the neighboring rainforest. Later, when she’d stopped setting things free, Saber learned that animals that raised themselves around humans did not fare well in the wild, as though straying too close to humanity tainted something precious inside them—no longer could they return to their origins, not their home and not the soil and clay that bore them.

“Sorry I’m not much of a conversational partner today. Is this what they call ‘a case of the winter blues’?” Irisviel murmured. Snow white hands tossed in a log of firewood. On its crackling bark, fresh embers sputtered to life and splayed gold streaks that jolted on her cheeks as she yawned.

“You are tired. I suggest you get some more sleep. We still have a few hours until first light.” Saber said. This would be their last night in the castle.

Irisviel glanced at her with a devious smile. “Yes… I should rest, shouldn’t I?”

Before Saber could react, Irisviel plopped her face into Saber’s lap.

“I-Irisviel?”

“Let me rest, Saber. We only have a few more hours left to us, as you said.” Irisviel shifted until she was gazing wistfully at the fire, her hands curling around Saber’s knees.

Rendered silent by the warm weight in her lap, Saber could do nothing but sit still. Their time here was reaching the end, and she too was seized by the need to indulge. Something stirred inside her, beneath thick cobwebs cloaking the annals of her mind, a foggy memory with Guinevere, who had also once laid atop her, warm with wine and heavy with desire.

“Saber?”

Green eyes snapped down to Irisviel’s face. Her face, a marble landscape graced by solar hues, her silverwhite hair glimmering like the sea at the cusp of dawn, her wine-red eyes mirroring bare, raw wants. Saber looked at her—earnestly, she looked.

“Are you tired?” she asked.

Saber smiled. “No, my lady.”

“Good.” A palm cradled Saber’s cheek and she was compelled, as if by divine hand, to lean in. Iris smiled back, and closed the distance.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> I love them so much, I hope I got their characterization right. I'll die for these girls.
> 
> Talk to me on [tumblr](http://thesleepermustnotwake.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/qpuffs)!


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